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By Root 2253 0

court make of a child without a shadow? She vaguely remembered that there were existing fairytales about lost shadows. Why was it frightening to have no second self, to cast no shade? She saw vaguely that she had made the baby so smiling and self-confident because that was an image of shadowless singularity. He might become one of those protected beings who weren’t allowed out because they were vulnerable—like Sleeping Beauty, who must not see spindles, like the Buddha, protected from disease and death. He lived in perpetual noonday, which was intolerable. He would have to go down the rathole, no two ways to it, he would have to go into the world of shadows and retrieve his own. She imagined a kingdom of rats with human shadows, mocking a questing infant. A Helper was needed—a dog, a cat, a worm (no, though it was subtle and subterranean), a magic snake, maybe, snakes ate rats …

She could not think what to write next. And at that precise moment—a relief, and a terror to writers—she heard the wheels of the station-fly on the gravel. Humphry was back. She wrote a sentence

“At first the king, queen and courtiers noted only that Lancelin was even more beautiful, sunny and smiling than they remembered. And then this singularity of grace began to be alarming.”

Always leave writing in medias res was a rule she had learned. She put away her writing pad, and went downstairs to greet her errant husband. As often happened, Violet had got there first, was helping with his overcoat, had taken possession of his bookbag and umbrella. He kissed Olive, and made a joke about her girth, which did not please her.

He went into his own study, to look at his letters. There was a considerable heap of them, some a week or two old, some arrived yesterday. Olive sat in a rush-backed chair in the corner of his study. She was disinclined to go back to her interrupted work, and mildly resentful of the interruption.

Humphry read the letters, smiling to himself. He put them back in the envelopes—except the bills. Then he came to one, out of which a press cutting fell. Humphry read, and was frozen. Olive asked what was the matter, and Humphry handed her the cutting.

“Slit throat at train terminus. Financier found dead.” For a moment, Olive thought Basil had killed himself—Humphry’s violent reaction suggested something as grave as that. It was not Basil—it was “Frederick Oliver Heath (38) a member of the Stock Exchange who had been unable to sleep for the past 3 weeks owing to trouble caused by heavy monetary losses” …

Olive said “Did you know him?”

“No, but I know he was in trouble with Kaffirs. I know several things that most people don’t yet know. I am sure—I have always been sure—that Basil is too deep in Barnato’s muck except that ‘muck’ is too solid a word, it’s murk, a murky cloud of obfuscation and prestidigitation and rope tricks and promises never meant to be kept. Basil won’t have sold, partly because he won’t want to admit I might have been right—I know Basil. I must telegraph him. I’ll take the pony-trap. Forgive me, my dear, when I’ve only just come in …”

Humphry was both genuinely distressed, and taking energy and pleasure from the drama. He strode out, calling to Violet to get the man to harness the pony, to fetch his coat…

Olive sat in Humphry’s study, and pondered the useful words, muck and murk. Rats were mucky and murky. Briefly her mind revisited, and shied away from, Peter’s and Petey’s tales of rats in mines, eating candles, and the men’s snap. She began to tidy Humphry’s papers, and cast an eye over the letter he had been smiling to himself over. It began

“My Very Dear.”

She looked at the signature. “Your (no longer a maid!) Marian.” I am not a fool, Olive said to herself. It is much more sensible not to read this, which is not addressed to me. She read it.

My Very Dear

You have been gone for so short a time, and yet already everything, the whole world, is quite another place, emptier and fuller. I truly do not know who I was, or how I lived, before I first saw and heard you. The woman I now am came into being as